Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 25th April 2024 Issue no. 1111
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Working together to secure washroom facilities for delivery drivers
Unite the Union and Truckers Toilets UK have been combining forces to secure washroom facilities for haulage drivers, in areas that they might have to stop over for some rest, such as on industrial estates.
Together they worked on the booklet 'Access to Facilities: A drivers' guide', which has proved popular with a number of drivers and companies. Now Unite is demanding a statutory, legally-binding code of practice to be established so that HGV drivers have access to adequate parking facilities, showers and toilets. TTUK is supporting this move.
At the Ministerial Roundtable meeting in November last year, the Government announced that it is to conduct an extensive survey of lorry parking across the country, but like TTUK, Unite feels there is 'too much talk and not enough action'.
The two believe that Government is moving too slowly on this issue but Unite also feels that haulage bosses should bear responsibility for the welfare of their own drivers. Many companies do, but there are certainly many who don't give a jot what happens to their drivers as long as the job gets done.
Unite and TTUK agree that urgent action is required to oblige developers to include parking facilities for drivers in their plans - something TTUK believes should have been a given, but apparently not! Alongside this, Unite believes that there should be a 'national minimum standard for parking facilities - underpinned by a statutory code of practice - to which both public and privately-owned facilities should adhere.
"It's hard to believe that basic working conditions for lorry drivers and other mobile workers are still not at an acceptable standard in the 21st century!" says Gill Kemp, founder, Truckers Toilets UK Campaign.
27th April 2017